Split Hairs

"Well, the colony has been isolated since the Troubles.  Perhaps fifteen, sixteen thousand years," said Mirkovski.  "I'm dealing with a lot of unknowns here, not to mention a distinct lack of decent lab equipment."

"Isolation intensifies genetic drift," Kowel mused.

Mirkovski pushed his glasses back up.  "I haven't confirmed-"

"Are they," Kowel interrupted, "or are they not a different species?"  He rested a hand on his belt, beside his serrated combat knife.

"I..." Mirkovski swallowed.  "I think we may have encountered the first splintering, yes.  Homo xenosis, perhaps."

"Then our food supply problems are solved."  Kowel grinned.  "Tomorrow, we hunt."

Endurance

It wasn't until the fourth week of our voyage that I realized the lump of rock in the cargo hold was alive.  It lifted a leathery head and regarded me solemnly as I maneuvered a grav-cart into place in one of the racks.  I stumbled under the impact of its gaze.

Roarke misinterpreted my surprise.  "They're amazing critters, aren't they?  Live for years on nothing but air and a few drops of water."

"Useful traits for a pet on a long voyage," I ventured.

"Pet?"  Roarke laughed uproariously.  "That's a week of protein there, boy."

The rock-turtle watched us leave.

Station Gamma 356 Has a Nickname

"Welcome to Hell," Captain Gardarov said. He handed over the keys that would give Corterelli access to the station's computers, sensors, and – Unity forbid – weapons.

"Er..." Corterelli juggled the bundle uneasily.

"Don't worry." Gardarov was unshaven and greasy, his grin disturbing. "you'll hear them soon enough. The whispers. And you'll curse the weeks. Thought it was a bargain, eh? Full year's pay for three months? The whispers know. They know so much..."

Corterelli made to respond, but Gardarov shoved past him into the transport. With a hiss, he was gone. Corterelli looked around. He cocked his head and listened.

Nothing...

Squatting in the Furnished Rooms

"I am out of creamer and sugar," the coffeemaker told P1ng.

He rolled her eyes. "Just put hot water in the cup."

"Water service non-functional," the sink announced.

"Quiet!" P1ng poured the steaming water into a chipped bowl of scrounged insta-noodles.

The refrigerator piped up. "You are out of milk-eggs-butter-broccoli-asparagus..."

"I said shut it!"

"You should just ignore them," Laura said, rubbing sleep from her eyes.

"You'd think they'd figure it out. When do they run down?"

"Well, they're mostly solar, so... never."

"Can't even have a proper friggin' apocalypse."

The popcorn machine beeped. P1ng threw his mug at it.

Forget About Towel Service

They watched it on the viewscreen for a while.

"This doesn't mean anything," said Docker. "In a theoretically infinite universe, there's bound to be seeming patterns that crop up. A truly random sequence can manifest apparent runs or sequences as easily as random noise."

They watched the viewscreen a little longer. The object spun gently in space: a perfect replica of the Holiday Inn from downtown Boardman, Ohio, back on Earth. An escaped chocolate mint ricocheted off of the exterior camera.

"What I want to know is how they can justify those prices," said Waslo.

"Supply and demand?" Eretri suggested.

Opposing Force

It was late when we found the old woman. She was the last. We could see it on our readouts, the other sectors reporting in clean one after another. We'd been slow, and now she was the only one.

"Wait," I told Harris, as he raised his pulse-rifle.

"Getting soft?" he sneered.

"Not exactly. But she's the very last. When she's gone, that's it."

"Isn't that the point?"

"What will it do to us, I wonder, when nobody's left to hate us for what we've done. Where will it all go?"

Harris rolled his eyes and fired.

I'm still wondering.

The Enemy Reveals Himself

Heyo! Catching up after an illness. Didja miss me? (Does anyone even notice when I fail to update? I see we lost a follower, but I don't know why...)

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"This is crazy. We're crazy." Hyatt gnawed at a thumbnail already bitten to the bloody quick. "We're traveling back, but we don't even know we're not infected. We could be carrying it with us. And Earth, oh, God, we can't, we can't! We have to-"

There was a loud report and a soft, meaty thud. Captain Stiller tucked his sidearm back into its holster. His eyes flicked to Ortiz and Rawlins. "He was a carrier. Paranoia. Delusions. It was obvious. Necessary."

Ortiz and Rawlins didn't dare even to glance at one another, but their hands tightened together under the console.

Sunfire Whiskers and a Tail Made of Stars

We were overrun before we knew it. Not an invasion, precisely. An infestation. Their ships stole when our backs were turned, nibbling away at our nascent web of interstellar travel. Rats. Space rats.

We sent cats to fight them. They hunted their prey with cunning and agility. The cats never shared a kill, but sometimes they'd leave a bit of wreckage in a docking bay.

When the last of the foes was gone, we waited for our heroes to return, but they didn't. We received one last communication from the Alpha Cat: "BRB. Chasing a comet."

They never came back.

Pattern Recognition

Captain Trystero stared at the swirling mass on the screen, the bizarre anomaly the long-range sensors had picked up. "TS-197, what is that thing?"

The android whirred gently. "Unknown. Not in database."

"Sweet mercy! A wholly unknown astronomical event..."

"Don't jump to conclusions, captain," said Spekkio.

"What do you mean?"

Instead of answering, Spekkio rummaged in the console, coming up with a fork from the mess hall. "TS-197, identify?"

"A three-tined eating utensil."

Spekkio turned his back on the android and bent the fork into a circle. He spun back. "TS-197, identify?"

"Unknown. Not in database."

"See?" sighed Spekkio. "Robots."

Talking to Himself

The ship hummed softly to itself, hundreds of sounds on dozens of frequencies, alone in the void. The console crackled, voices fading in and out amid the static. Lights flickered on the viewscreen. The others had all set out for the stars when they'd re-appeared, taking the lifeboats. He'd drawn the short straw. "We'll be back soon," Tria had told him. "With help."

He wondered what had happened to them when they hit the edge. Had they been crushed? Or would they, too, loop around, garbled and distorted, just like the lights of the ship and his own emergency beacons?

Motherhood

Long one today. LadyM's prompt over at my Livejournal pseudo-mirror ended up making me think about sentience and the hilarious claim that gay marriage will lead to bestiality achieving acceptance and then about alternative lifestyles in general and then about what granting human intelligence to animals would really mean and then this came out. Apologies in advance if it squicks you; it's not supposed to be squicky.

---

Simone licked at her tailtip distractedly. "I've been thinking."

"What is it, honey?" Rob sipped at his coffee.

"You know I love you," Simone began.

Rob glanced up, raising his eyebrows.

"And I'd never regret our partnerhood," Simone went on, "regardless of... physical issues. It was the happiest day of my life. You must know that."

Rob didn't say anything.

"But I've been thinking about... kittens."

"Enhanced?" Rob kept his face carefully neutral.

"Otherwise they'd be no more than pets." Simone bit at an imaginary burr on her flank. "I know it's asking a lot. My kind would never raise another's children. Toms don't tend to stick around for fatherhood anyway."

Rob stood, towering over her. He bent down and kissed the top of her head. "Any children of yours will be beautiful," he said, and then thoughtfully left the room before Simone could embarrass herself with un-feline emotional displays.